First Eclipse

Fauna opened the oven and set the rest of the bacon on the tray. Cooking for a giant of a man was similar to feeding the entire Gemini family. At least, she hoped starving meant to make a lot because she had. Moving the curtain aside, she saw that Mac was outside. She felt guilty that they had to watch over her and Tim like that. Gnawing on her lip, she put some bread into the toaster. After she had a shower, she was going to talk to the girls on the phone so they could brainstorm ideas for why these people needed her so badly. Tim had almost died because of her.

A feeling came over her, and she turned to see Tim standing in the doorway. His hair was neat, his beard trimmed, and he looked nothing like the man who had been covered in blood. "Your shower works better than mine at home. You look like a new person."

He grinned and ran his hand over his jaw. "I don't often have time to clean up."

"I suppose not." She went over to the fridge and opened the door. "How do you like your eggs?"

"Cooked. I'm not fussy on how." He went over to the cupboard, got out a cup, and poured some coffee. Turning around, he leaned against the counter and gave her a look she didn't understand.

"What?" She set the tray of eggs beside the stove.

"You look amazing in my kitchen." He smiled.

She touched the messy bun she'd managed after finding an elastic in the drawer. "I probably look like a complete disaster."

He shrugged. "You still look good." He winked at her and then went over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. "Mac must be loving this assignment."

She broke four eggs into the pan. "He didn't seem to mind when I was talking to him."

"He hates standing doing nothing."

"I made plenty. He could come in and eat."

Tim chuckled. "Hard to watch when you're inside at the kitchen table."

The toast popped, so she buttered it quickly and put more in. "I suppose." She checked the eggs and then turned around and looked at him. "Why are they after me, Tim? What could be so important that they'd try to kill you to get to me?" He shook his head slowly. "I don't know, but they wanted me gone before we've bonded completely." He lifted his arm, referring to no tattoo on it.

She huffed out a breath and turned back around to the pan. "I don't get it."

"I know. I'm going to call the captain after I eat and see if they got anything out of that mage from the building." He scoffed. "Or anyone from the buildings."

She flipped the eggs, careful not to break the yolks. "What were those buildings for?" She heard the chair slide against the floor and glanced to see him sitting at the table.

"I didn't hear of anything important being found, so it's probably just another place they stayed."

Getting the plate, she slid the eggs onto it and set the pan aside until she was ready to make more. She opened the oven and used the tongs to grab a large portion of bacon and put it on the plate. Adding the toast, she took it in and set it in front of him. He looked at it, nodded, and then smiled at her.

"Thank you."

Turning, she went back into the kitchen and put more eggs in the pan. "Do they always stay together in groups?" "Most of the time."

Buttering the toast, she put more bread in. "Wouldn't it be easier to stay hidden if you weren't part of a large group?"

Tim glanced over at her. "They're not the brightest. Except for a few masterminds we've gotten, the rest are as sharp as Play-Doh."

Fauna grinned at his description. Returning to the pan, she flipped the eggs and added some bacon to a plate while they finished. When she had a sizeable amount of food on the plate, she poured a cup of coffee and added the sugar. She knew Mac had taken in his, grabbed a fork, and headed for the door. "I'll be right back."

Mac gave her a surprised look when she saw her walking toward him. "I think you might be too good for him, Fauna." He smiled.

She laughed. "I made enough for a house full." She held out the plate and cup to him. "I'm used to feeding a lot of us at home."

"You'll get no complaints from me if you have extra food." He bowed his head as he took it from her. "Thank you." He grinned. "I'm not telling the others, or they'll volunteer just in case they get a meal too."

Hugging her waist, she looked around. "Do you think you'll have to do this for long?"

Mac shook his head. "No, this is just until we know Tim is one hundred percent." He glanced at the house. "How is he?"

"He says he's fine. He doesn't move like he was almost dead yesterday."

Mac chuckled. "He's probably got more royal blood than his own by now." He nodded. "They take care of us when we get hurt."

She looked over her shoulder to see Tim standing looking out the window. "Does that happen often?"

Mac glanced in the direction of the house. "Not really. A few bruises and knocks from time to time." He toasted her with the mug. "We're good at what we do." Jerking his chin in the direction of the house, he smiled. "You should get back and have your breakfast. The captain said he was coming here this morning."

Fauna looked to see Tim still standing there. "I hope its with good news."

"If it were bad, you two still wouldn't be here in the open like this."

She hadn't considered that. "Enjoy and thank you for keeping watch." "Anytime."

Tim was sitting at the table when she got back inside. "He's going to be singing the praises of you for months now."

Fauna laughed. "It's breakfast."

He leaned on the table and watched her go back into the kitchen. "We're usually invisible to others."

Fauna snorted. "Yes, a row of giants hovering in the back is so hard to notice." She put an egg on to cook and popped the toaster back down to warm the already-toasted bread she'd forgotten to butter.

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"It's just the way it is. We're guards. We can't be vigilant in our job if we're socializing."

She pulled the tray out of the oven and set it on the stove. "I like being unnoticed, too."

"I find that hard to believe that you're not noticed."

She turned her head and looked at him. "We've blended in for a long time." She grinned. "Okay, when we go out for a group ride, that's pretty noticeable."

Tim snorted. "I would guess so."

Putting the egg on the plate, she added a few pieces of bacon and her toast and went to the table.

They ate for several minutes, glancing at each other briefly, but neither of them spoke.

"Mac said the captain is coming here this morning." She looked at him.

He nodded. "Good, it will save me worrying about waking him to speak with him."

"I guess everyone's sleep schedule is a little messed up."

He looked amused and nodded. "Just a little."

She was still nibbling at her toast when he got up and got the tray with the rest of the bacon on it. She watched him dump it on his plate. "How much does it take for you to be full?"

His eyes lit up with humor. "We never know when we'll be called to go out on duty or take out some cell of idiots, so we eat whenever we get a chance."

Her mind was swimming with questions, and she wanted answers but knew to most of them there weren't definitive answers. "We don't know a lot about each other." She hadn't meant to say it out loud.

He looked up from his plate and then leaned on the table. "Do we need to know everything right away?" He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. "Mates are together for a very long time. If they know everything at the start, what are they supposed to talk about or do for the next hundred years?" He set the fork down and leaned back. "My parents met and were fully mated within a week. They were happy, almost annoyingly so if I recall." He grinned. "Hugging and snuggling against each other even when I was eighty years old." He shrugged. "Fate selects our mate, but it's up to us to do the rest. The basics are there, respect, attraction, protectiveness-" He grinned. "I think we both go that part in spades. You ordered a prince to give me blood."

Fauna opened her mouth and then closed it and smiled. "I did." She laughed. "I didn't understand that it wasn't a quick fix all the time."

"I was ordered by the huntress and all the other royal women to be straight with you and tell you every detail pertaining to mates, but it's not as easy as it sounds." He put his hand on his chest and patted it twice. "Most of it is feeling, it's inside us, and that's not something you can put into words. Rather, most men can't put it into words." He held out his hand.

She looked at it and then put hers in it. With a gentle tug and motion with his head, she stood up. When she was standing beside him, he shoved the chair back and then pulled her closer and put his hands on her hips. She realized he wanted her to sit in his lap. She did it but felt a little odd doing so. She was not a compact female that fit in laps.

He placed one hand on the small of her back, and the other rested lightly on her knee. "How do you feel? Uncomfortable? Awkward?"

She bit her lip and then shook her head. "No. I feel small, which doesn't happen to me often. I'm not one of those petite people."

Tim scoffed and wrapped his hands around her waist. They almost touched in the middle. "You're petite, just tall."

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She put her hand on his shoulder and studied his eyes. She could see hints of red in the dark color and had to wonder if they were always like that and she just hadn't noticed. "If we weren't mates, we'd be having those panicky 'what now' feelings and you'd probably already be standing back up."

"I feel comfortable." She gave him a wide-eyed look. "I would never sit on a man's lap."

"That's good to know." He grinned. "Feelings. Everything else about each other can be learned later, and unless one of us is a serial killer, it will all fit together as it should."

She inhaled the scent of him and realized that even fresh from the shower, he still had that smell he'd had in the caves. It was just his unique scent.

"What are you thinking?"

She met his gaze and felt her cheeks heat. "That you smell good." She lowered her lashes. "I noticed it in the caves when we were dangling in the air, trying not to die." She grinned. "It was the strangest thing ever."

He laughed. "That's probably right around when I realized we were mates. The timing sucked so bad."

She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head slowly. "There won't be any fairy tale stories written about us."

He snorted. "Not unless they replace romance with dire moments."

She nodded and found herself looking at his mouth. His eyes were dark, so the fangs wouldn't be there. Biting her lip, she flicked her gaze back to his. "I should clean up my mess in the kitchen."

"You don't have to." He reached up and brushed some hair out of her eyes.

She suddenly felt butterflies in her stomach. The heat of his hand against her face seemed to calm her. His eyes started to go red. "Do you need to feed?"

They changed more as he looked at her. "No, I need something else."

She was going to ask what when he pulled her closer and covered her mouth with his. Fauna had kissed boys before, but this wasn't the kiss of a mere boy. His mouth tasted hers softly. Pausing for a second before doing it again. His lips persuaded hers to do the same, and it was making her breathless. When she opened her mouth, his tongue found hers, and it was both sensual and electrifying. Nothing like those kisses from when she was a teen, where she was certain the boy was trying to swallow her face. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss, and she responded by teasing his tongue with her own. She felt the sharp fangs, and her heat moved through her.

He made a low rumbling in the back of his throat, and excitement coursed through her entire body. He pulled her closer to him so their chests were touching. She felt tiny in his arms the way he held her. His mouth made her feel cherished. It dawned on her that these feelings inside her could easily turn into love without effort. That should have scared her, but it didn't. She'd never felt as complete and right as she did right now.

A loud knock had them jump apart. Tim looked at her as he slowly licked his lips. The intense look in his red eyes made her feel like she was on fire inside. "The captain has bad timing." He whispered.

She could only nod. Removing her arms from around his neck, she stood up. "I'll start tidying the kitchen."

He stood up and then grasped her hand when she went to turn away. "I can tell him to go get stuffed if you'd like." His eyes were slowly going back to normal.

She smiled. "I don't think that would help you get good assignments going forward."

He grinned. "Probably not." Lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed it and then released it."